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Mars Society News
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It's been over a month since I've updated this web page, but there's been a lot of action in other locations. The TEMPO team has been quite busy.
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that the 12th Annual International Mars Society Convention will take place from July 30-August 2, 2009 in the Washington DC area, at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The Mars Society's Third Annual University Rover Challenge (URC) is seeking the best and brightest college teams to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers for a competition at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah. The international competition will be held May 28-30, 2009; thousands in prize money, and a year's worth of bragging rights, are up for grabs.
MIRIAM was launched to a 175km peak altitude from the SSC ESRANGE rocket test site near Kiruna, North Sweden on October 22nd, 2008. It rode on top of the REXUS4 sounding rocket managed and built by the EuroLaunch Consortium of the DLR Moraba group of Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and ESA.
During the past week, MIRIAM and its flight system stack were prepared for launch. The flight operations team and the flight support crew arrived in Kiruna along with a number of guests. Until Thursday, the only one missing was MIRIAM herself, who unfortunately got lost during transport from Stockholm to Kiruna. She was finally located in Lulea, safely delivered to ESRANGE and checked out. No transportation damages were found.
You will be pleased to learn that NASA administrator Michael Griffin announced that the program has been given the authority to continue for a planned 2009 launch.
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that the Louis L. Stott Foundation has recently donated $35,000 in the first of a promised series of gifts. This grant will be used to help support the Society's new project, TEMPO³, and to support The Mars Society's membership outreach program.
Due to budgetary overruns, NASA and Congress may cancel the Mars Science Laboratory, which is scheduled to be launched to Mars in October of 2009 - in a vote that could be held as soon as Friday! This 9-foot long rover is far more capable than the twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and will contain the most impressive array of instruments and experiments that has ever been sent to Mars. It will be able to look for the building blocks of life. All previous Mars missions have been leading up to this one. UPDATE: Any letters sent to Congress through 10:30 a.m. eastern time on Oct. 10 should be re-sent immediately. The system uses the house.gov web server to look up representatives, and that system is currently being overwhelmed by people upset with the financial bailout. As a result, letters sent to Congress were not properly generated. We apologize for the inconvenience, and have now implemented a workaround that will allow all letters to be sent. We also want to clarify that there is no actual vote by Congress planned, but a decision will be taken by NASA management that can be influenced by input from your representatives.
Announcing Print-On-Demand book publishing of full papers from the Mars Society Conventions 2005-2008.
Submit your Mars Society Convention presentation for electronic publication in the MarsPapers Archive.
Over the weekend, the flight system was successfully flight commissioned and the MIRIAM entry vehicle assembled and packed. On Monday morning, the Entry Vehicle was finally installed within the Service Module and the clamp ring was locked. The system is now ready for deployment in space.
The Mars Society has extended formal congratulations to SpaceX, after Flight 4 of the Falcon 1 vehicle successfully reached orbit last night.
German Mars Society Performs Flight System Commissioning Tests on MIRIAM
After receiving the proper trajectory file from MORABA and finding that no flight sequence modifications are necessary for successful operation, we proceeded with flight system commissioning tests. We tested failure modes and nominal missions. Despite a successful commissioning earlier this week, two potentially hazardous problems resulting from software upgrades were discovered and fixed.
It's hard to believe that a month has passed since that day in August, when The Mars Society took on TEMPO³ as their latest project. The last four weeks have been spent pulling a team together, and getting word out to the world that the project is underway. Progress has been made on several fronts, but much remains to do.
The MIRIAM Instrument Pod, Service Module and Camera Module each underwent a complete flight simulation test cycle on September 18 at our own lab and the DLR field center Oberpfaffenhofen.
The MIRIAM Service Module and Camera Module were vibration tested last Friday, September 12, at IABG's Space Test Center of Ottobrunn, Germany.
In Memoriam: MDRS Veteran Grant Waller
Grant Waller, a veteran of MDRS Crew 59 and father of founding member Stacy Sklar, succumbed to cancer Monday evening.
SpaceX Hiring For Texas Facility
Mars Society member Derek Andreas, who has been working at SpaceX's Texas Test Site since February, is looking to recruit fellow members of the Society to work at that facility, as well as in other positions throughout the SpaceX organization.
Photo Gallery From 11th Annual International Mars Society Convention Available
Member Ben Huset, who was responsible for filming the presidential space debate at the convention, has now made a gallery of still photos from the convention available on the web.
After receiving the highest number of votes cast by members of the Mars Society and the endorsement of the Steering Committee, Hill's concept to launch a microsatellite that will test artificial gravity generation techniques - which will be of immense value to the crew of a six-month flight to Mars - was named the winner of the MPC Saturday evening at the 11th Annual International Mars Society Convention.
Contained Smart Folders:
- Expired News — by Jean Lagarde — last modified 2007-06-05 00:50
- Expired news, newsletters, press releases (i.e. of mostly historical value).
Deadline for receiving papers for the "On to Mars 3" book
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